ALC Game 33: Korea / Wang Kon

[Um the Muse]

I disagree about overlap. Yes, there's a lot of resources, but outside those, the land is pitiful. As I see it, you have just the right amount of food. The only tile I'd feel comfortable in losing is the marble.

Edit: I don't think this city will ever grow to more than 9 citizens or so. Pigs and oasis give seven surplus, the cows and wine are neutral, the marble is -1 as are the two gHills for a total of 4 surplus food at size 8. Two scientists is probably best, or maybe using the pHill will work. I guess you could also farm some riverside plains and whip them every 12 turns or so (didn't do the math, here. Just back of the envelope).

 

[Benginal]

So, in an effort to improve, I did something that I've never done ... create a test game! I think it goes a little above and beyond overkill, and Sisiutil would surely disapprove. But it's this kind of civilized intensity that's important to win an SGOTM! And I've never before made a test game so this was good practice I think. You'll see when you open it that I made no effort to take into account what my camera flying suggested about the surroundings but simply recreated the fat cross. I kept all the warriors at home since what they discover is meaningless to the real game. The test save is attached for anybody who wants to try and optimize an opening. Speaking of which ...

I used my test game to make this initial micro spreadsheet.

I botched the overflow at the bottom by overflowing too many hammers into a warrior and then losing some. And I also should have been more specific about the whip and chop overflow. But other than that I'm pleased with how it turned out.

At turn 39 I had produced 4 warriors not counting the one I started with, two workers, and a settler. You can see all the specifics yourself in the attachment. But it's looking like Soirana and Kossin's suggestion of starting hunting and worker is pretty good (who's surprised, ).

 

[Um the Muse]

@ Benginal: Way to go for going above and beyond the call of duty.

On the question of who was surprised, well, I for one was surprised: I was right?!? Even a blind squirrel, blah, blah

I notice that in this example, you still didn't go for a scout. Four warriors should be plenty for spawnbusting. You won't need a city garrison until barbs. The land so far looks flat and dry, so a scout should be able to move around as needed and you need advanced intel to find better land to settle.

I'm also hesitant about your decision to work the hills right after the food. Especially since you started working a warrior after the second worker. I think that you should irrigate the wine. If you do that, you won't need bw right away. You can afford to get agri before the pastures are done if you do it before bw. Get bw next for slavery, and whip the wine people as needed.

 

[Benginal]

I notice that in this example, you still didn't go for a scout. Four warriors should be plenty for spawnbusting. You won't need a city garrison until barbs. The land so far looks flat and dry, so a scout should be able to move around as needed and you need advanced intel to find better land to settle.

I'm not a fan of scouts. I think the mistake I make is just not doing enough exploring with the warriors I do have. I was too conservative on my fog busting last time and didn't explore enough. But spending valuable early hammers on a scout just doesn't seem worth it.

I'm also hesitant about your decision to work the hills right after the food. Especially since you started working a warrior after the second worker. I think that you should irrigate the wine. If you do that, you won't need bw right away. You can afford to get agri before the pastures are done if you do it before bw. Get bw next for slavery, and whip the wine people as needed.

I'm also not convinced that spending a bunch of turns on agriculture is worth it just for putting farms on plains, even if they do have wine. Feel free to post a test game!! . My current micro has me going from size 3 to 5 for a while working the pigs, cows, and oasis and then adding the two green hills and eventually the marble tile.

I did another test game almost exactly the same as the last one. In this one I only chopped one forest, instead of two, and made two less warriors although the next one was coming out in the next turn.

So I think at this point the only thing to decide is if we should go hunting or agri first with animal husbandry an obvious second technology. And then I can play the game, explore some more, meet or not meet neighbors, and then make a better test game and do the first 90 turns or something. It's looking like hunting is winning, but if anyone has dissenting opinions, or, even better, dissenting proof, please share!

 

[neilmeister]

scratch that, read it more closely

 

[Um the Muse]

@Benginal:
One nice thing about a scout is the psychological aspect: you can't not use it for exploring (well, I guess you could give it Medic I, but that's neither here nor there).

As for agri already, no, I imagine it isn't really better for your capital per se. The idea is that your second city presumably will need it (just a guess. I don't dl these, so I won't be tempted to cheat). And with judicious use of the whip (once you get those tiles up; it will take you time to grow that big, anyway), you should have similar production to the hills via the whip, and you'll have a fair bit more commerce. Meh, I'm probably off on this. I don't really know how tight the race for the oracle will be.

In your breakdown above, you decided to work the unworked wine. While producing a worker, no less. Why, if I may be so bold?

Also, I thought we were going to go for the oracle since you have marble, weren't we? If so, why are we getting roads so soon? AH is good enough for writing, if you're trying to get two scientists going ASAP. Is that the plan? Even if it is, you might consider that the quarry is better than a gHill and you need masonry anyway. Either way, I think roads should be put off a little longer.

 

[vranasm]

did you place there in the bpt innate +1 beaker you get regardless of slider? I don't think so.

8 palace, 1 city tile, 3 wine + 1 bpt = 13.

Once you start to research AH the bpt gets multiplied 1.2 due to having hunting so the 12 is wrong too.

so your beakers are a bit "screwed".

 

[Habitus]

Well the timing looks about right, 11T AH with 12 beakers = 140ish with overflow, at immortal its around 169 so looks like the beakers is only how many produced not how many he's putting towards a tech, the last turn is probably largely overflow too.

 

[ben-jammin]

What I really want to know is how much you can actually benefit from building the oracle with marble in your BFC. At immortal you have to be safe and delay bronze working until after priesthood and masonry, so you miss out on some early whips. You also have to assume that unless you take CoL and go caste system that your first (and possibly second) GP will be a prophet instead of a scientist. But oracling something like metal casting at the same time can net you monarchy, alphabet, all the back-fill techs, iron working, and possibly mathematics as well which may or may not make up for not getting your early academy.

In this game i oracled MC and was still able to expand out to 10 cities peacefully s I'm not sure how badly delaying bronze working actually hurt. I doubt I'd have been able to settle more than that, though maybe marginally quicker. The oracle was something like 7 turns to build.

But in the latest ALC you also get marble in your capital, but good city sites are a bit more limited and you dont have the benefit of being financial. On my first run-through i oracled metal casting again and got great return for it in trades but ended up having my second GP come out a prophet as well. I think if i go back and replay that same opening but oracle code of laws instead I could probably not only get the GS first but also increase my tech rate by whipping and chopping courthouses. Alternately one could forgo the oracle altogether, build the mids and guarantee that your first GP is a scientist. I dunno...

 

[Benginal]

In your breakdown above, you decided to work the unworked wine. While producing a worker, no less. Why, if I may be so bold?

Good question. The answer is because of the extra commerce provided by the wine. You'll notice that from test game 1 to test game 2 I got BW and therefore revolted, one turn earlier. I didn't time the chops very well in the second game meaning I had to one-pop whip the worker. I'll probably give it another go making sure that I get the worker two-pop whipped and then chop into the settler and two-pop whip him as well. I think that will be fastest although I'll have to time the growth from 2 -> 4 carefully.

Also, I thought we were going to go for the oracle since you have marble, weren't we? If so, why are we getting roads so soon? AH is good enough for writing, if you're trying to get two scientists going ASAP. Is that the plan? Even if it is, you might consider that the quarry is better than a gHill and you need masonry anyway. Either way, I think roads should be put off a little longer.

Well I was going for the wheel to get a trade route to my second city since I like to get a road up right away. Roads are also good as then I can get away with just one "good" unit (chariot, axeman) to protect both cities from barbs. But going writing first might be better to get a library up. The I might be able to bulb maths and oracle Construction for some early Hwacha destruction.

did you place there in the bpt innate +1 beaker you get regardless of slider? I don't think so.

8 palace, 1 city tile, 3 wine + 1 bpt = 13.

Once you start to research AH the bpt gets multiplied 1.2 due to having hunting so the 12 is wrong too.

so your beakers are a bit "screwed".

Hmm, I don't know either of those. I got my bpt from the bpt slider at the top left of the main screen. I'm not sure about the base 1bpt you get even when you turn your slider down. I'll look into it. And it was my understanding that if you get a pre-requisite tech that instead of giving you a multiplier on your beakers it multiplies the beakers needed for the tech, AH in this instance, by .8. I'm not sure on this either though.

What I really want to know is how much you can actually benefit from building the oracle with marble in your BFC. At immortal you have to be safe and delay bronze working until after priesthood and masonry, so you miss out on some early whips. You also have to assume that unless you take CoL and go caste system that your first (and possibly second) GP will be a prophet instead of a scientist. But oracling something like metal casting at the same time can net you monarchy, alphabet, all the back-fill techs, iron working, and possibly mathematics as well which may or may not make up for not getting your early academy.

I'm also unconvinced that having Marble is a huge help since to get it I have to research Masonry. I think more importantly though is that I can get BW. Oftentimes you have to pass it up because you don't have time, because you had to spend time on Mining. But since I already have mining, I think I can afford BW. And with all the trees I have and the pigs+cows+oasis it's easy to whip from 4 to 2 and then grow back.

I'm liking the idea of Oracling Construction just because I've never done it before. But Oracling Feudalism might also be interesting. We'll see what happens when we get some more information about the map.

 

[vranasm]

@ben

feel free to rediscover yourself. I did in the last SG some early game spreadsheets and to my surprise it works this way.

the +1 bpt is nowhere visible, but is there

and the cost is not lowered but you instead produce more beakers.

It has probably small effect later, but it can throw your spreadsheet off in early game (as I realized with the last SG game where I had to correct 1 spreadsheet like 3 times until the times and beakers OF was correct with the real test ingame).

btw the beakers are truncated (if I remember correctly) which is important since you truncate your bpt and not truncate the tech cost (producing 14 bpt instead 14.4 bpt can in the end mean over 10 turns producing 4 beakers less and in game meaning you will have the tech 1 turn delayed).

 

[Habitus]

Beakers applied to Technology = FLOOR (FLOOR ((Total Base Beakers + 1) * KCwT modifier) * Prerequisites modifier)

FLOOR = round down to a whole number, KCwT = Know Civs with Tech. The +1 comes from owning a City (any number still gives just 1), hence why you don't get it if move on turn 0 and don't settle. You gain .2 bonus for having all prerequisites techs (no matter how many there are that are NEEDED), and .2 bonus for every optional tech you have as well. Ie 1.2 for either hunting or agriculture on AH, or 1.4 on having both. At 12 beakers thats (12+1)*1.2 (only hunting) = 15.6, rouned down to 15 beakers a turn towards AH

 

[ben-jammin]

Good question. The answer is because of the extra commerce provided by the wine. You'll notice that from test game 1 to test game 2 I got BW and therefore revolted, one turn earlier. I didn't time the chops very well in the second game meaning I had to one-pop whip the worker. I'll probably give it another go making sure that I get the worker two-pop whipped and then chop into the settler and two-pop whip him as well. I think that will be fastest although I'll have to time the growth from 2 -> 4 carefully.



Well I was going for the wheel to get a trade route to my second city since I like to get a road up right away. Roads are also good as then I can get away with just one "good" unit (chariot, axeman) to protect both cities from barbs. But going writing first might be better to get a library up. The I might be able to bulb maths and oracle Construction for some early Hwacha destruction.



Hmm, I don't know either of those. I got my bpt from the bpt slider at the top left of the main screen. I'm not sure about the base 1bpt you get even when you turn your slider down. I'll look into it. And it was my understanding that if you get a pre-requisite tech that instead of giving you a multiplier on your beakers it multiplies the beakers needed for the tech, AH in this instance, by .8. I'm not sure on this either though.



I'm also unconvinced that having Marble is a huge help since to get it I have to research Masonry. I think more importantly though is that I can get BW. Oftentimes you have to pass it up because you don't have time, because you had to spend time on Mining. But since I already have mining, I think I can afford BW. And with all the trees I have and the pigs+cows+oasis it's easy to whip from 4 to 2 and then grow back.

I'm liking the idea of Oracling Construction just because I've never done it before. But Oracling Feudalism might also be interesting. We'll see what happens when we get some more information about the map.

Obviously i twould be pretty great to oracle feudalism, but is it even possible on immortal? Even construction would be iffy. The oracle is often built around 1100BC in my experience. You could probably do it but it would be a pretty major gamble and if you lose you've put a lot of turns into a poor tech path. We generally avoid putting more than minimal turns into math and monarchy, right? By the time you get them half the AI have em and the other half are part way there. I imagine that you'd also have to sacrifice expansion bigtime to do it.

As for whether or not marble matters for building the oracle....I guess that's debatable. Obviously it's cheap enough to chop out and not have to worry. Then again, a marble quarry is a pretty decent tile. And the 50% production bonus can save you about as many turns as masonry might cost you to research. And then you can safely choose not to chop, or to chop less, leaving you with more forests for a settler/granary/library/whatever. It's not like they're wasted turns because you will be wanting that marble hooked up later anyway.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Obviously i twould be pretty great to oracle feudalism, but is it even possible on immortal?

Very possible on immortal.

However oracling feudalism is usually not as useful as Currency / CoL / CS. By the time you get to where you can capitulate someone you can probably self tech feudalism.

 

[Um the Muse]

Ok, I caved in to temptation and tried this out for myself. First of all, the screenshot contains a spoiler or two. I did my best to cover it/them, but I know how clever people can be at seeing things. Fair warning.

I decided to go hunting->AH, masonry, the wheel, buddhism (I think? the cheaper of the two ways)->Priesthood. I micro'ed a little so that if I had a citizen not working the oasis or something developed, it would work the wine. My worker (I had only one for the majority of the game so far) went for the pigs first (waited two turns), cows next, followed by the quarry (no wait), and finishing with the mine. So far, the match-up has been pretty tight--meaning I get the technology within two turns of my worker becoming available. EDIT:"Available," as in can get there and have movement left over to work the tile. Obviously, you build the worker three turns before AH comes in.

Without any chopping, I ended up with 5 warriors and 2 workers, with 5 population and Priesthood coming in in 2 turns. I could probably have been able to shave a turn by switching from the cow (or pig) earlier. The second worker was just a placeholder once I reached my happy limit.

Btw, I noticed that there are indeed hidden beakers coming in. You can see them on your demographics screen under GNP (which is gold+science+something hidden) and I end up getting some tech a little early, due to meeting an AI(s).

Spoiler :

 

[Um the Muse]

Some notes: Maybe I have an odd sense of humor, but I found it funny how the worker just improved every other tile in a clock-wise fashion.

I also have no idea when I can expect the other AIs to grab the oracle. Thus, I just went for it as fast as I could. I'm pretty sure that I could have gotten a settler in there. I mean, the second worker was just there for show, y'know? The third worker that I'm working on is also a waste. I didn't think that the timing would be that perfect, though. Obviously, a settler is more showy than two workers ;p

I'm pretty sure that I've shown that you don't need bw this early. I'm not even sure that it really helps anything. Your tiles are just that good.

 

[Keilah]

i'd get agri instead of hunting. it's a couple turns slower to the pigs but it gives the worker something to do when moving and you know you're going to need it soon. Whereas with hunting its a complete waste unless you find elephants/deer/fur.

 

[ben-jammin]

I got into a winning position here but stopped playing because it was going to be a long modern war. Good map, good land, good leader. I'd have probably done better to take earlier advantage of the UU, particularly considering the nature of the UU of your southerly neighbour.

Spoiler :

Capturing Rome and Antium gave me not one but three shrines for a total of something like 38 gold per turn as well as a good half a dozen wonders including the MoM. Between that and financial the tech race to modern armies was more-or-less won. Slowed down a bit by the fact that Persia got rifling halfway through my bombardment of his first city. Took two of his cities and made the poor decision to take a peace treaty for gold and a throwaway tech (compass), because I was getting into a bit of war weariness. The plan was to take him down to one city and then vassal him and hopefully have him throw in some sweet tech goodies but of course the turn after I declared peace after taking a second city he peace-vassaled.

So I was in a dominant financial situation, at tech parody with the rest of my continent heading towards steel. I dunno, maybe I'll play it out a bit more. Definitely an interesting map, with the religious lovefest turning Julius into a peaceful wonder/tech machine, and Mongolia getting such a good starting position that Kublai actually kept up in tech the whole game and barely warred.

 

[Um the Muse]

@Ben-Jammin: you forgot to convert the quote tags into spoilers.

Back to my analysis: I'm thinking that I should have gotten writing instead of Priesthood there, but the rest of my plan looks good.

As to hunting vs. Agri: yeah, it might hurt us a bit later for putting it off, but the early game is so super important, I think it is worth doing regardless. And who knows, with all those plains, it's not unlikely that we could find elephants.

 

[ben-jammin]

oops, fixed.